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Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Guest: J.R. Lindermuth and Starting Your Fiction

My online friend, J.R. Lindermuth, is my guest today, talking about beginnings. Read on for some great tips!

Your
first sentence should draw the reader in. The second should compel him to
continue reading.

That
isn't sage advice from some great writing seer. It's my admonishment to myself
as I begin each new story or novel. I've been using it since a reviewer said
she was "hooked after page three" about an earlier book.

Page
three is too darned late to hook most readers.

People
have short attention spans and we writers need to perk their curiosity from the
beginning. And the best way to accomplish it is with an opening that inspires
"who,""what" or "why?"

Richard
Wrights great novel "Native Son" (1940) begins with:

Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigg!

The
second line is taken up with explaining it's the sound of an alarm clock, which
diminishes the impact. I don't think it would work today. Modern readers are
not patient critters.

On
the other hand, Elmore Leonard's opening for "Glitz" (1985) begins:

The night Vincent was shot he saw
it coming.

Now
who wouldn't want to know more about that?

I
hope I've accomplished something similar for Shares The Darkness with “She
didn’t come home last night.” You know someone's missing. Hopefully you'll want
to know why?

Here's
the blurb for my latest, Shares The Darkness, seventh in the Sticks Hetrick
crime series:

Jan Kepler and
Swatara Creek Police Officer Flora Vastine were neighbors and schoolmates, but
never close.

When Jan, a
school teacher, avid birder and niece of a fellow officer, goes missing and is
found dead in a nearby tract of woods Flora finds herself thrust into the
middle of an examination of the other woman's life, as she searches for clues.

As usual,
the police have more than one crime to deal with. There’s illegal timbering and
a series of vehicle thefts taking up their time. And there are other issues to deal with. Flora is concerned there’s some
shakiness in her relationship with Cpl. Harry Minnich who seems to be making a
lot of secretive phone calls.

Still Flora
maintains focus on the murder. Despite evidence implicating other suspects, the
odd behavior of another former classmate rouses Flora’s suspicion. Flora’s
probing opens personal wounds as she observes the cost of obsessive love and
tracks down the killer.

Bio: A
retired newspaper editor, J. R. Lindermuth has published 14 novels and a
non-fiction regional history. His short stories and articles have been
published in a variety of magazines. He is a member of International Thriller
Writers and is a past vice president of the Short Mystery Fiction Society.